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General Fitness & HealthDiscuss general fitness. conditioning and health topics.

I thought I would make a thread about increasing growth hormone and testosterone through exercise and according to this PT book I'm studying, which sorts of exercises do it best.

We all know doing weight training increases both, but according to the personal training text book on hormones, they break down which %RM is best for promoting the increase of each hormone.

This is adapted from the book

Growth Hormone (GH)
It has been shown that as an increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions in the blood can cause an increase in the release of GH. The concentration of hydrogen ions in the blood is increase through anaerobic glycolysis (lactic acid energy system). The conclusion can be drawn that to increase GH levels, it is important to do a program that increases lactate levels, so something high intensity with a short rest interval. In terms of weight training, this means 3-4 sets of your 10RM with a 60 second rest interval. The short rest interval is a common denominator in increasing GH levels.

Note on energy systems:
The main energy system used for weight lifting is the ATP-CP system, which is basically the resysenthesis of ATP from ADP through the breakdown of creatine phosphate. This system is very very fast and powerful and has no by products. But it doesnt last long at all.

The next one used is anaerobic glycolysis aka the lactic acid energy system. This one is the resysenthesis of ATP from ADP through the breakdown of glycogen without oxygen. This as a result creates lactate (not a bad thing, lactate tends to be fairly misunderstood), as well as hydrogen ions, which decreases the pH of the body. This is responsible for the pain from training and some of the fatigue, and from what I mentioned above, it also increases your GH levels.

Testosterone (Test)
Test levels have been shown to increase through doing large compound movements at 85%RM+ for a relatively high volume of 3-10 sets with short rest intervals of up to 60 seconds. In addition if you have a long training history, this sort of exercise creates an even bigger boost in test levels. The book doesnt go into any more detail sets and reps, but I would assume its 3-10 of maybe single or doubles, or maybe even triples? Any thoughts?

What is also interesting is that there is a significant increase in IGF-1 (Insulin like Growth Hormone) and test levels in older trained males from the participation in periodized heavy resistance training.

This information was taken and adapted from the PT book Im studying to become a PT, which will be very soon.

I think the conclusion we can draw is if the weights are heavy and the exercise hurts, its going to be good for you.

What does everyone think?

P.S. I didnt go into details of why its good to have more test and GH and I didnt go into a lot of detail on the energy systems. Also sorry for any typos, its late at night for me lol

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